Gamers the world over have been waiting many a year now to return to the land of Albion, the fantasy setting for Lionhead’s flagship adventure title, Fable II. Thankfully, all those budding banshee hunters and troll trashers are in for a treat.

Taking the role of a novice hero from humble beginnings, you’re out to make a name for yourself among Albion’s inhabitants and avenge your sibling struck down by the evil Lord Lucien.

Your method of reaching this goal however is entirely up to you. For Fable II is a game of choices; are you to be a benevolent hero, helping the needy and defeating the corrupt, or will your quest for vengeance be completed at any cost, even that of your own soul?

Moral choices are littered throughout the game and directly affect the world around you. For instance, choose to help a bumbling town guard and return later to find him chief of police, or ignore his pleas and watch his beat descend into the grip of vice. What would otherwise be a pretty standard Zelda-like adventure takes an intriguing spin when you realize your every action is under scrutiny.

The game feels remarkably English - not only is its fantasy setting rooted more in the world of fairytales than the Tolkien-esque fare that most role-playing games opt for, but it also has a unique humour that could only have come from an English development team like Peter Molyneux's Lionhead. It's not often in a game you'll hear a passing non-playable character complaining that he's suffering from "the trotters" for example.

While the game’s much touted-social interaction mechanic falls a little flat, Fable II is as close to a perfectly realized fairytale world as you’ll likely to see in a game.